anil gupta's blog

In a whirlpool of silences
All the words you spoke
Got sucked into a paste
That plastered the cracks
In my soul
Layered the legs
With a waxy coat
Lest some bugs should bite
On a fool moon night
Letting you complain
About their taste
And my indifference

How many times
Did one have to fail
Before redemption
How many times
Should one listen to the woes
Of wounded souls
Flying in the moonlit night sky
A fatigued pry
Can fear of death be so huge
To make meaningful life
A distasteful bargain

Long struggle
Of creating a new human being
Seems jettisoned now
Not easy to accept defeat
Yet vanity of my imagination
Must give way
No more are asymmetrical promises kept
In this world
No more are non reciprocal acts
Of kindness left unresponded
Brutality of exchange economy
Has become pervasive
Almost every street
Is named after one or the other form of vengeance here
I don’t live here anymore
I Dont belong here
How did I come here
How did i get trapped in these
Corridors of contrite
Desires to be even
No matter how odd that looks

Where will you rest
A lawn with a lot of mosquito bites
Or a room with dark black kites
Some fly to frighten you
And some just are there to
Keep the juices of mellow
Mind flowing

What shall be the point
When silence seduces
The eloquent expanse
Of a garden
The meditative meanings
Will not Be obscure
And the pain will find a cure
Even if the source will also endure

There are many turns
That a road has
Some are blind
And some are very pointed
Some take us to nowhere
Some to the places where shadows
Jostle with the rays of light
Piercing through the
Branches of an ageing tree

There are times
When I don’t hear,
Shouts of whether I am deaf
Don’t bother me,
Because I m deaf a bit
But only when I am lost in my thoughts
Like my father
My listening is selective
On at times and off many times
How else do I maintain my sanity
Do I listen to every small
Detail
As to how the
Wrinkles on a collar of a shirt
We’re pressed right
Or a mark on the sleeve
Was not removed
I can ignore this
But I can’t forget to listen the way
Your earrings have to be buttoned
So that holes remain in place.
Not too elongated
Like a hook
A bit loose

Tired by the incessant questions
About the reason
Why envelop was folded leftward
And not right
Completely took my
Peace away for a while
How to Make the content appear
More relevant
When all that matters is one’s sense of
What is most relevant at a moment
Can trivia be really celebrated
I m going to learn that
Else there is no way
I can walk ten steps more
But should we walk ten steps more
Will it not help
If I run
And reach there first
Wait fr you to arrive
Argue
And then
Stay put for next hour
Exploring
Whether taking left foot forward
Is better than the right foot

AH!
I wish
I didn’t know

The rapid talk failed
Slow serene smiles didnot fill
The vacuum
Created by an obsession with
Detailed sketch
With all the n formation
Except the arrow showing the north
Now how does one navigate
The boat in a moonlit night
The way is clear
But direction is not
Mapmaker is lost in trivial details
Of what to buy at every stop
On the way
But which stop will come
Is not known
Now travelling without compass
Is like cooking without fire,
You can only do as much
Under the sun
Without fire and the pans

I need freedom
From wants of vain desires
From pain of forest fires
Lit by careless walkers
Who had promised not to play
With the destiny of dried leaves
But could not overcome the temptation
Of warming their bodies
On a cold night
By the bonfire of those leaves
Which have consumed
The forest
In which we had planned to build a campus
Of creative pursuits
By the forlorn souls
Vanquished by their ambitions to be
Whatever it meant to see
The morning lights of a faraway sea

The distances that were shrinking
Have suddenly become longer
I can’t bear the sight of a child working day and night
Only to be reminded
That her future is to breed more children
To do the same
This world
Will swallow the million dreams
Of eyes that have not rest
Souls that have not slept
But are not souls sleeping too long
How else so many children
Will remain awake
Without any one losing sleep over
Them